When you are just starting out a business, it may be your goal to keep the business small in the beginning, slowly building up your success until you have achieved the level that you desire. Keeping the business small and under the radar may also mean choosing not to open a business banking account, rather using your own personal checking account for the time being. This method is used often, but it is not necessarily the smartest decision you can make when trying to build up a business. There are several things that you should consider before you decide to stay strictly with your personal banking account; taxes, professionalism and more taxes.

Keeping both your personal banking and your company banking together can cause mass confusion, especially during tax season. Keeping personal and professional spending and costs separate can be quite a hassle. You are required by law to report all of your business spending in an accurate and precise way. Having both your personal and company banking all tied up together can cause quite a bit of hassle if you are not diligent, carefully recording and keeping separate all of your spending. Keeping your accounts together can also mean that you may miss some valuable tax deductions that you are entitled to. Having messy records makes it very difficult for yourself or your accountant to find all of the prudent deductions that can help your business.

It is a fact that if you are in business today you should protect your proprietary information when dealing with vendors, independent contractors and other assorted types of businesses. Of course this would mean that you would have them sign an “NDA”, which stands for a non-disclosure agreement.

What Is An NDA?

So what exactly is an NDA? In short, an NDA is a signed contract or agreement between parties who are engaged in any type of business agreement or transaction. The purpose of the signed agreement is to protect confidential information that will become known as a result of the business agreement or transaction.

Terms Of the NDA

The terms of an NDA can vary but by and large they mandate for financial damages in the event that one of the signing parties violates the agreement. This also usually also includes attorney fees for the damaged party.

The NDA and the Internet

In spite of NDA’s being so easy to have written up and implemented, a surprising number of today’s business owners fail to use them. In fact, the Internet is one place in particular where business people can benefit greatly from the use of the NDA.

Commercial Websites and the NDA

Suppose you have someone who is managing your websites. Whats to stop them from skimming valuable information that you use in your sites and take it elsewhere for their own benefit. Remember that even if your suites aren’t booming today one never can tell what the future will bring.